threshold. It was the effect the voice evoked in him, in Jake, in all the callers later. It was a calming, a certainty. “I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, haven’t I Luke.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. A lot of people find this hard to swallow, eh, believe.” Luke was choosing his words carefully, realizing how ridiculous it was at the same time.
“I have important things to tell, but I think you need something more to know that I am who you think. Something is to happen now. It’s a gift.”
Eileen was listening, an earplug running up from the tiny transistor radio in her pocket. She sensed it before actually seeing. The tempo of the hospital had changed, almost imperceptibly at first, a stirring, rustling. Movement where there had been none.
“Where are my clothes? Where have you put my clothes?”
She whirled around.
Mr.Fagel, age 89, was not expected to survive the night. The cancer that raced through his body had left him in a coma for the last 24 hours. On morphine, deprived of fluids, he could pass quietly, without pain, a merciful end.
Now he sat on the edge of the bed, determined to go home, alert, energetic and mainly, impatient.
“My God. Oh my God.” Across the hall, Carol Julian clung to the door knob of her daughter’s room, grasping desperately to prevent falling. She was terrified of her own imminent collapse and uncomprehending of what just happened in her daughter’s room. In a hospital gown, Cynthia Julian helped her mother to a chair. “It’s alright Ma. I’m alright.”
A minute earlier, she too had been comatose.
She smiled wanly at Eileen, motioning to the IV attached to her arm. “I don’t think I need this anymore.”
In New Delhi, London, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Singapore, thousands rose, restored and bewildered.
News crews pulled up in front of countless hospitals within minutes, assignment editors tipped off by their inside sources that always called with major accidents and bloodshed. This was the biggest story anyone would ever cover, and nobody quite knew how. They hadn’t learned miracles in journalism school.
Luke and Jake were oddly isolated from the turmoil, though they were at the very center of it.
Eileen got through on the private line. She was crying and laughing at the same time. He could barely make her out. “ It’s . . . I don’t know how to describe . . . it’s chaos here, Luke . . . all the sickest people . . .”
Luke and Jake juggled the deluge of on-the-air callers, many with firsthand stories. A leukemia victim of eight receiving last rites 30 minutes ago was now chasing the family cat through the house. Nursing home attendants, shaken by halls filled with wandering elderly, whom an hour ago lie vacantly staring at the ceiling tiles, unseeing.
Most moving was Justine, in a wheel chair for eight years, with MS. Her voice was so small and tentative. “I’ve been hoping he’d come back, Luke. I knew it was him, but I didn’t expect him to make me better. Just to let me accept it. I’m awfully weak, but I can walk, kinda.”
Luke said goodbye and gave Jake the sign for commercials, too emotional to continue. He broke down several more times as the stories poured in. Jake kept him going, calming him through his headset, feeding him just the calls he thought he could handle.
Zack appeared in the newsroom. Luke could see him through the glass, directing the KOGO reporters who had come in, on their own, to write stories for air and help out stations calling in from around the world for telephone voice reports.
Then he was on TV, fielding one network interview after another. Understated, telling only what he knew as facts, refusing to bite at the sensation-seeking questions. Those reporters Zack would just stare down. NBC’s local stringer wouldn’t let up. Zack finally lost it as the film rolled. “Do you have a real question there somewhere, or are you just gonna be an asshole all night?” He knew that would never get on
“Yes. A lot of people find this hard to swallow, eh, believe.” Luke was choosing his words carefully, realizing how ridiculous it was at the same time.
“I have important things to tell, but I think you need something more to know that I am who you think. Something is to happen now. It’s a gift.”
Eileen was listening, an earplug running up from the tiny transistor radio in her pocket. She sensed it before actually seeing. The tempo of the hospital had changed, almost imperceptibly at first, a stirring, rustling. Movement where there had been none.
“Where are my clothes? Where have you put my clothes?”
She whirled around.
Mr.Fagel, age 89, was not expected to survive the night. The cancer that raced through his body had left him in a coma for the last 24 hours. On morphine, deprived of fluids, he could pass quietly, without pain, a merciful end.
Now he sat on the edge of the bed, determined to go home, alert, energetic and mainly, impatient.
“My God. Oh my God.” Across the hall, Carol Julian clung to the door knob of her daughter’s room, grasping desperately to prevent falling. She was terrified of her own imminent collapse and uncomprehending of what just happened in her daughter’s room. In a hospital gown, Cynthia Julian helped her mother to a chair. “It’s alright Ma. I’m alright.”
A minute earlier, she too had been comatose.
She smiled wanly at Eileen, motioning to the IV attached to her arm. “I don’t think I need this anymore.”
In New Delhi, London, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Singapore, thousands rose, restored and bewildered.
News crews pulled up in front of countless hospitals within minutes, assignment editors tipped off by their inside sources that always called with major accidents and bloodshed. This was the biggest story anyone would ever cover, and nobody quite knew how. They hadn’t learned miracles in journalism school.
Luke and Jake were oddly isolated from the turmoil, though they were at the very center of it.
Eileen got through on the private line. She was crying and laughing at the same time. He could barely make her out. “ It’s . . . I don’t know how to describe . . . it’s chaos here, Luke . . . all the sickest people . . .”
Luke and Jake juggled the deluge of on-the-air callers, many with firsthand stories. A leukemia victim of eight receiving last rites 30 minutes ago was now chasing the family cat through the house. Nursing home attendants, shaken by halls filled with wandering elderly, whom an hour ago lie vacantly staring at the ceiling tiles, unseeing.
Most moving was Justine, in a wheel chair for eight years, with MS. Her voice was so small and tentative. “I’ve been hoping he’d come back, Luke. I knew it was him, but I didn’t expect him to make me better. Just to let me accept it. I’m awfully weak, but I can walk, kinda.”
Luke said goodbye and gave Jake the sign for commercials, too emotional to continue. He broke down several more times as the stories poured in. Jake kept him going, calming him through his headset, feeding him just the calls he thought he could handle.
Zack appeared in the newsroom. Luke could see him through the glass, directing the KOGO reporters who had come in, on their own, to write stories for air and help out stations calling in from around the world for telephone voice reports.
Then he was on TV, fielding one network interview after another. Understated, telling only what he knew as facts, refusing to bite at the sensation-seeking questions. Those reporters Zack would just stare down. NBC’s local stringer wouldn’t let up. Zack finally lost it as the film rolled. “Do you have a real question there somewhere, or are you just gonna be an asshole all night?” He knew that would never get on
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